A New OPEC for Gas?

Russia, Iran and Qatar held talks in Tehran yesterday about forming a cartel for natural gas that would resemble the OPEC cartel for oil. But the structure of the natural gas business makes it unlikely that a gas OPEC would get off the ground anytime soon.

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Posted by Steven Mufson on October 22, 2008 2:34 PM

Plenty of Pipeline Options. All Bad

Commentators have been quick to point out that Russia's defeat of Georgia has pretty much killed the chances that new oil and gas pipelines will be built to increase the security of supplies to Europe. It's clear that there is little to stop Russia from rolling its forces up to the existing pipeline or knocking it out of commission if it wanted to. The Washington Post's Steve Pearlstein even suggested that demonstrating the pipeline's vulnerability may have been one of the underlying motives for the Russian incursion.

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Posted by Steven Mufson on August 19, 2008 6:27 PM

Qatar's Gusher

From the United States, the prospect of endlessly high prices for oil and gas looks unrelentingly grim. Just this morning, the Commerce Department announced a bigger than expected trade gap for April and it’s clear who the villain is – crude oil imports accounted for just under half of the nation’s net trade deficit.

From the other end of the international oil pipeline, however, things look pretty good. No giant sucking sound there, just the happy gurgle of oil revenues flowing into the government cup that is running over.

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Posted by Steven Mufson on June 10, 2008 2:25 PM